I Have FInished “Illustrator CS6 One-on-One: Fundamentals”

Thursday, May 17th, marked the completion of my next video course for lynda.com, Illustrator CS6 One-on-One: Fundamentals. It will include all sorts of exciting and monumentally educational live-action introductions (replete with graphic overlays) as well as scads of screen casts in which I demonstrate how the most elemental facets of this amazing program work. Not to mention how you work with it.

For example, in Chapter 6, “Tracing an Image” (in which I explore CS6’s new Image Trace panel), I show you how to take a scanned Sharpie drawing of a half of an insect (how much more pedestrian could that be?) and turn it into the fully realized butterfly pictured below. Entirely auto-traced. And thus transformed from a murky quagmire of pixels to the resolution-independent vector-based realm of Illustrator CS6.

A butterfly drawn with a Sharpie, scanned, and traced in Adobe Illustrator

Even sweeter, we end up turning this drawing into a huge poster that measures 6 feet tall by 8 feet wide. And because we’re working with vectors, the result looks crystal-clear sharp, even when inspected under a loupe. Click the graphic above to see a much larger view, one that will take a few moments to load, but in time may blow your mind.

I’ll let you know a release date as soon as I know.

Next entry:Camera Raw JPEG editing for the iPhoto Faithful

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  • Great news

    I understand that you will have your hands full with the One-on-One series fore a while.
    I’m wondering if the CS3 sharpening course will get an update.
    Dos it need an update? Are the recommendations still relevant?

    Keep up the good work :-)

  • I can’t wait.

    I’m ordering my copy of CS6 this week so I’m looking forward to viewing your new Illustrator One-On-One series. I’ve seen everyone since Illustrator CS3 and they have taught me so much.

  • CS6 Illustrator Video

    SWEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEET! I’m buying it but dont have cs6 :)

    thanks Deke. also can you sign copies of the dvd’s??

  • Sah-weet!!

    Awesome!  Can’t wait!!

  • This course is now live on

    This course is now live on Lynda.com!

  • Error in Illustrator CS6 One-on-One: Fundamentals

    LOCATION: Illustrator CS6 One-on-One: Fundamentals with Deke McClelland. 8. Simulating beveled edges. Movie: 7:34 - Opacity.

    PROBLEM: Movie contains two opacity settings in the appearance tab. Sample file Drawing complete.ai contains only one opacity setting. No instruction to create the second opacity setting is provided.


    UPDATE: Please disregard, this is my mistake, not in the movie or the file. I had not noticed that the Appearance > Stroke option was twirled open.

    Update2: I’ve gone through this unit of instruction twice and there’s still something in it that I’m missing—maybe it’s because I’m unfamiliar with the Appearance panel and how it works, maybe it’s because there’s something slightly off in the instruction… I say that because I have not had any difficulty with any of the previous movies, and because I’ve also just completed the following movie, Creating a network of interlocking paths (which extensively utilizes the Appearance panel and stroke functions) without any difficulty. I have bookmarked this instructional item and will revisit it after I complete the course.

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